


softness in our hymn

by orphan_account



Category: McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: AU, Angels and Demons, Anxiety, Dissociation, Dysphoria, M/M, Possession, author's note regarding recent events at end, brief mentions of death + suicide, just. go with my dubious ethics on the possession here, mythology bullshitted on the fly please dont kill me if you know about religious canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-08 20:36:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11654268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Nick is an Angel of the Chorus.There are any number of problems with this, and most of them seem to start and end with Griffin.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is extremely messy and self-indulgent, so all i can ask is that you indulge me.

_ one _

It’s not his first time out on a purification job like this but it’s the first time their target has been conscious for the process, and this particular demon is turning out to be  _ distracting.  _

Nicolas tries not to make dangerous sorts of assumptions about what demons do and don’t look like – evil comes in all shapes and sizes, wolves in sheep’s clothing, that sort of thing – but even he had to admit that the thing that called itself Griffin looked… surprisingly benign. He wasn’t the kind of host demons usually went with; in Nicolas’ experience, the dregs struggling at the bottom of society were easier to talk into a contract than most. This just looked like some  _ guy.  _

He’d given up the pretense of mortality as soon as the holding sigils had burned themselves into the floorboards around his feet, and he’d spent the last ten minutes or so floating easily a couple of feet off of the ground, hands clasped behind his head. As far as he could tell, Griffin had been paying half-hearted attention to Tara and Simone, although he probably couldn’t hear a word of their murmured discussion from across the room. Now, though, he seems to notice Nicolas staring, turns his full attention on him for the first time,  _ leers  _ in a way that makes him swallow uncomfortably. 

"What?” Griffin asks, a laugh in his voice. “Are you  _ enraptured  _ by my good looks?” 

He doesn’t quite  _ reel  _ so much as he freezes for a second, finding himself unfooted. He shouldn’t be engaging with an agent of Hell, shouldn’t let himself be so easily taunted, and yet– 

When the shock wears off he finds himself frustrated, and he pushes himself off of the stool, takes a short step towards the circle. “Not exactly  _ your  _ looks, are they?” He’s half-tempted to spit  _ demon  _ at him, but even angels have a passive awareness of when something’s too melodramatic, once in a blue moon.

Griffin gives a short, bubbly laugh, shifts himself until he’s standing upright with his hands in his jean pockets. He leans forward, grinning at Nicolas. “Well, neither are yours, bud! I mean, what did you go with, some old priest?” Griffin gives him a scrutinizing look, accompanied by a few exaggerated tuts of disapproval. “Typical, predictable, pretty boring if you ask me.”

“I’m not–” He sputters, cuts himself off when he realizes he doesn’t have a response.    
  
In a burst of self-consciousness he can’t help but glance down, acutely aware for _ just  _ a second of the heavy black shirt, the stiff clerical collar, the slight wrinkles starting to line the knuckles on his hands, the raised veins running up his arms. He feels a sudden panic, tries to quash it; angels don’t  _ think  _ about their host bodies, just use them and discard them as needed. He’s not supposed to be  _ aware  _ that this doesn’t fit, that it doesn’t belong, that it’s as much his as a stolen, too-big too-small jacket is, that a thrumming heart and rushing blood and warm skin isn’t  _ right–  _

_ “Nicolas.”  _

Simone’s voice breaks through with all of the sharp clarity of the cloudless sky Upstairs, and he realizes he’s toeing the edge of the circle, looks up to find Griffin’s face a few inches away, grinning delightedly.

“Nicolas?” He echoes, one eyebrow arching. “Oh, that’s  _ cute.” _

And he’s– it feels like he’s caught in Griffin’s orbit, leaning forward too-close, barely aware of Tara and Simone’s voices behind him, the urgent tones, and hyper-aware of two of Griffin’s fingers hooking underneath his collar and  _ tugging  _ just slightly, smile widening wickedly when Nicolas follows him, too compliant, limp like a ragdoll and– 

It only really occurs to him that, what with the holding sigils, Griffin really shouldn’t be able to do that, just as Griffin’s speaking half-against his cheek, “The name’s nice, but the body doesn’t really suit you. It was  _ very  _ nice to meet you, Nicolas,” and then he’s stumbling forward into nothing because Griffin’s vanished into thin air and the sigils are smoking beneath his feet.   
  
  
  


_ two _

Nicolas’ error is forgotten in the flurry of the Chorus trying to figure out how Griffin had managed to escape their sigils, which is probably for the best, because he hasn’t been back Upstairs in a solid week. 

He’s… wandering, would be the word for it, he thinks. Having a crisis of conscience, maybe, except that angels aren’t meant to have those, not anymore. Anyways, he’s not even sure what’s happened to bring this on, except for Griffin, bright eyes and sharp smiles and fingers at his throat, but that – that’s just temptation, lust, maybe. It doesn’t account for this sudden disconnect, for his complete dissociation from any sense of reality, any idea of who or what or  _ why  _ he is. Doesn’t account for the need to scratch nails across skin he doesn’t have, doesn’t account for the phantom touches, the echoes of a body that was almost human but not quite  _ enough.  _

He hovers, incorporeal and indecisive, finds himself clinging to the familiar as he watches the streets of the city. There are demons everywhere – such is the nature of things – but there was something about Austin that had caught the attention of the folks Upstairs, and if he pays attention he can  _ almost _ sense it. Like a dog leering at the trails of a scent in the air he finds himself drawn to the traces of energy thrumming under the concrete, something unique and bright and  _ sharp.  _

  
  


_ three _

He finds the priest again. He’s not sure why. Maybe he wants to be sure he’s recognized, for all the good it’ll do him.

When he catches sight of himself in the reflection of a store window it’s all he can do not to throw up right there in the street, to choke back the revulsion, the sense of  _ wrong  _ threatening to overwhelm him. 

It’s a vessel, a host, a means to an end, nothing else. It should be inconsequential. It shouldn’t matter that it’s not  _ him. _

  
  


_ four  _

The breeze that ruffles his hair is… pleasant, he thinks. At the very least it’s a stark contrast to the muggy, blistering heat that had weighed down the air the last time he’d been here. The sun is glinting harshly off of windows, soaking into his skin, heating the concrete of the sidewalk beneath his feet. The sky is startlingly, perfectly blue, in the sort of breath-stealing way that makes him want to believe there was an intention, a  _ purpose  _ in the Earth; something beyond the entropy. It’s a nice day.

It’s not all too surprising when he finds Griffin sunning himself like a cat on a park bench, head leaned back and eyes closed, smile open and relaxed.

The grass sinks softly under Nicolas’ polished black shoes, and Griffin doesn’t notice him until he’s right in front of the bench, arms folded across his chest and suddenly unsure of himself.

Griffin cracks an eye open, grins lazily. “Well,  _ hello  _ father. What have I done to deserve a visit from a representative of the church?” He gives a slow, one-shouldered shrug. “Other than the obvious, of course.”   
  
“I-” Nicolas says, haltingly, trying to remember why he  _ was  _ here. “I wanted to, to talk.” It strikes him, absently, that his  _ voice  _ is wrong but he doesn’t know  _ why.  _

Griffin stands, rolling his shoulders and stretching his arms languidly above his head. Nicolas takes a step back to make room.

“Well, allll-righty then,” Griffin says through a yawn, then turns a smile on him. “Though I hope you’re not expecting me to spill any trade secrets, Nicol–  _ mph!” _

Nicolas claps a hand over Griffin’s mouth, then removes it just as quickly, not wanting to draw the attention of anyone in the park. Instead he leans close, hisses, “Names have power! Do you  _ want  _ someone to find us?”

Griffin gasps like he’s just been offered the deal of a lifetime. “Oh, you’re not supposed to be here, are you?” He giggles, low and conspiratorial. “Well, okay, uh… Nico? No, no, wait.  _ Nick!”  _

“Nick,” he repeats, sort of distantly. It feels like something’s clicked, somewhere, in the back of his mind.  _ Nick. _

“Well, bud, if you’re worried about getting caught with me, I’m guessing you’re not here to try and kill me again?” It strikes Nicolas (Nick?  _ Nick?)  _ that Griffin has a startlingly casual demeanor about him, the way he leans into his space, smiles warmly, intimately, like they’re sharing a secret, conspiring in some way. It seems, to him, that everything about Griffin’s body suits him, wide, expressive eyes and a face which seems to  _ lift _ wholeheartedly every time he smiles. 

The dry answer runs through his head – that he hasn’t received any orders to go after Griffin, that demon-containment isn’t a job to be done alone, that he doesn’t have the right training, the right equipment – but he discards it in favour of a tentative, wavering sort of smile, ventures, “Everyone’s too preoccupied trying to figure out how you pulled your vanishing act to actually come after you.”

Griffin’s laugh is loud and infectious, a bubbling, full-body thing that makes his eyes squeeze shut, makes him throw his head back as he cackles. “Oh, that is  _ wonderful,”  _ he says, emphasizing it with a single clap. “And nobody’s figured it out?”    
  
He shakes his head, makes a neutrally negative sort of sound. “Most of them think you were actually either a nephilim or a trickster, or something, but…” he gives Griffin a once-over, hesitates for just a second before saying, “I don’t think so. Or, I guess, I don’t know what to think?”   
  
This gets him an inscrutable sort of smile. “An angel admitting it doesn’t know something? Shit, dude, you don’t get that every day.” He sits back down on the bench, pats the space next to him until Nick  _ (Nick? Nick.)  _ sits as well. 

Griffin says, “You wanted to talk.” It’s a nonstarter and an invitation both, a little absent, a little considering.

“How long have you had that body?” Nick asks, which is not the question he meant to ask, but is, upon consideration, kind of the one he needs answered.

Griffin heaves a sigh, hisses a breath between his teeth. “Ooooh, probably about a good couple hundo years, now?”

“Two  _ hundred?”  _ he echoes, voice pitching up in incredulity.

He shrugs. “Yeah, dude. I needed a more permanent dealio for staying surface-side, this guy needed something more fun to do than like, straight up fuckin’ dying, we came to a mutually beneficial agreement.”   
  
An immortality’s worth of training and doctrines makes something about that rub Nick the wrong way, and he’s blurting before he can think about it, says, “You just – you just took a guy’s body?  _ Permanently?  _ While he was still  _ alive?” _

He knows that was the wrong thing to say when he sees Griffin’s mouth twist, not quite a scowl but clearly prickling, actually upset for the first time since Nick’s spoken to him. “He  _ agreed  _ to it!” Griffin says, and there’s a disbelieving, sour sort of laugh to it. “At least, at least with demons we, we have to get fuckin’  _ consent  _ before we can possess someone!  _ Especially  _ if it’s gonna be a permanent thing! Angels can just, just fuckin' take possession of anyone for ‘religious purposes,’ whatever the fuck that means, whenever they want to, and people  _ die!  _ You  _ kill people like it’s nothing!”  _

Griffin lets out a harsh breath, scowls at his lap.

“I – sorry,” Nick says, barely above a whisper. “I didn’t think,” and he means it. He’d never really questioned it before, the ingrained idea that poor, desolate people were always tricked and deceived into agreeing to contracts with demons, but… Shit, everything’s feeling more liminal in a frightening, world-shifting sort of way, and he’s trying to wrap his head around the idea that he might not agree with what he thought he knew,

“Whatever, just,  _ whatever,”  _ Griffin snaps, but there’s less heat to it. Abruptly, he looks  _ tired. _

There are a few moments of stillness, and then Griffin stands, quickly enough to make Nick startle. “Make sure you put that poor guy back where you found him, alright?” He says, not kindly, but not entirely without humour. 

He takes a few steps, and then he’s gone, leaving Nick in a sudden, acute sort of isolation with his thoughts.

  
  


_ five  _

He leaves the priest in his office in the back of the church, head clutched in his hands and a sore blankness in his eyes. Nick tries to push down the guilt. He goes home.

Upstairs, there’s turmoil. Not just one, but three, maybe as many as four demons in Austin, a citywide curse or compulsion or  _ something,  _ and nobody seems to be sure what’s happened except to say that one of the Old Archangels’ descendants has been mortally wounded, isn’t expected to recover. Nick was not missed, and he won’t be needed anytime soon.

Which is just as well, for his purposes – he finds himself wandering again. Some nervous tension keeps him away from Austin, but he drifts through Houston, Dallas, then Phoenix, Tucson, Tempe, San Diego, Ventura, Los Angeles– 

San Francisco.

  
  


_ six  _

There is a man on the roof of a hospital.

He is sick, Nick thinks, looking at the pallor of his skin, the shivering that wracks his shoulders.

He is going to die, Nick realizes, looking further, at the dread clenching his throat, at the worry that’s carved itself under his eyes.

He is scared.

Griffin’s voice is in the back of his mind –  _ something better to do than dying _ – and he reaches out, speaks.

  
  


_ seven  _

Nick finds him leaning against a low brick wall, sipping coffee from a Starbucks cup and surveying the street.

“Griffin?” His voice is low, smoother than he perhaps expected. It pitches strangely, sometimes, lilts easily when he’s speaking. It’s well-suited to reserved laughter, quiet, longer thoughts.

It is well-suited to him, he thinks.

Griffin tilts his head, looks him up and down, eyebrows drawing together in confusion. A sort of answer seems to dawn in his eyes. 

_ “Nick?”  _ He asks, disbelief in every line of his face. 

Nick gives him a nervous, cautious grin in response. He’s not sure why he’s worried about what Griffin thinks, isn’t sure that this is the kind of thing he should be looking for  _ approval  _ for, but he can’t seem to help it, this desperate sort of hope that he’ll be pleased.

A beat of silence and stillness, before Griffin  _ lights up. _

“Dude!  _ Nick!”  _ He’s grinning, stepping into Nick’s space, and he barely has time to register the change before Griffin’s got one hand on his shoulder and the other one running through his hair, ruffling it, giving the long bangs a quick tug, before he’s stepped back again. “You look  _ good,  _ man! Or, I guess, somebody else did, and now you do.”

Nick, reeling a little from the sudden touch, then the lack of it, barely manages to muster a short huff of laughter.

Griffin’s smile fades a little, and his light tone is betrayed by the tension in his face when he asks, “You just borrowing a ride again, bud?”

Nick bites his lip, feels his shoulders hunching. “I- I don’t think so. This is, this is me, now, I guess,” and it feels strange and foreign and terrifying and  _ right  _ to say it out loud.

Griffin’s looking at him, wide-eyed and open in a way Nick’s never seen before. “Good!” He says, and then, much more quietly, “Good. You, uh, it suits you.”

  
  


_ eight  _

They’re walking in no particular direction when Nick catches sight of himself in a blacked out window and stops dead in his tracks. 

It is, he thinks, impossible to describe this kind of awareness. He gives his eyes, his hair, his mouth, (his, his,  _ his,)  _ cursory glances, licks his lips and watches the movement reflected. There is an elation that hasn’t fully hit him yet, tied to the idea that perhaps,  _ perhaps,  _ he’s looking into a mirror for the first time and seeing himself.

He’s taller than Griffin, he notices absently. Not by any significant amount, probably less than an inch, not anywhere  _ near  _ enough to matter, but he can look and he can see this and he knows that it’s  _ true. _

_ I’m taller than Griffin,  _ he thinks giddily, and it’s a  _ fact,  _ and more than that, it’s  _ his.  _

Griffin’s reflection is grinning at him, and–

And for all that he was meant to be a creature of faith Nick has never really believed in anything, he doesn’t think, not until now, not until he was hit abruptly with perhaps the only thing he knows to be true.

He can’t go back, not now.

  
  


_ nine  _

Griffin takes him out for lunch, laughs at Nick’s disapproving stare when he waves a hand and makes the waitress conveniently forget about their bill.

“I always tip, dude, don’t worry,” he reassures him around a mouthful of something that’s mostly bread and melted cheese, and beyond that Nick’s just honestly not sure. 

“Oh, good,” he says dryly, “for a second I was worried you were going to act like a demon, or something.” He twirls his fork in his fingers, pokes absently at his plate of… pasta? Maybe? He’d never bothered to get all that familiar with food, on account of not actually having to, well,  _ eat.  _ Griffin, though, has been emphatically insisting that food is one of the great pleasures in life, and as long as Nick is fucking over the Upstairs (and  _ shit,  _ is that a Big Thought that he’s avoiding thinking about the consequences of,) he might as well  _ enjoy himself. _

Nick is not, in any particular fashion,  _ enjoying  _ trying to figure out how chewing works. 

Griffin grins, says, “Hey, there’s a reason I stay topside, bud.” He sighs melodramatically. “I’m just  _ too  _ good for Hell.” He’s got his chin resting in his palms, fluttering his eyelashes at Nick, and he’s got these big, cherubic cheeks which make it  _ almost  _ work if it weren’t for the chaos glinting behind his eyes, and it makes Nick bark out a laugh that, entirely without his permission, turns into an embarrassingly high-pitched giggle.

Griffin starts to laugh almost instantaneously, and Nick’s most of the way to genuinely embarrassed already, except that Griffin gasps out between laughs, “Fuck  _ off, Nick,  _ you’re too fuckin’  _ cute!”  _

Nick drops his face into his hands, cheeks burning, tries to control his smile.

  
  


_ ten _

Nick’s used to losing pretty decent chunks of time while he’s Upstairs – he remembers missing ten or so years back in the early 20th century, and fucking  _ everything  _ had been different when he’d dropped back down again – so it’s not altogether surprising when he looks up and sees that it’s suddenly evening, the sun starting to dip below the taller buildings surrounding them.

“N-i-i-i-ck?” Griffin says, somehow dragging out his name into three discrete syllables.

“Mhm?” He’s a little distracted in his reply, caught up in looking around as they walk through the streets, feeling the breeze blowing his bangs against his face, feeling the concrete of the sidewalk under his shoes.   
  
“I gotta admit, it’s been awhile since I properly got myself acquainted with those sweet divine heavenly forces, and I wanna know: is there still a pretty strict ‘No Goofs Or Fun Allowed, Ever’ policy goin’ on up there?”

Nick glances at him, squints, then shrugs. “I mean, sort of? Yeah, actually, yeah. We’re not supposed to do any uh, frivolous stuff, really? I mean, up there there’s studying and taking walks in gardens and stuff like that, and some games, depending on who you talk to. We’re not allowed to come down here for recreational stuff.”   
  
Griffin grins at him, like that was precisely the response he’d wanted.

“Wanna have fun like a human?”   
  


 

_ eleven  _

They call it a Chorus, Upstairs, but it doesn’t really make any music in the definable human sense. Still, it’s something that’s  _ almost  _ noise, a rhythm, a murmur, a shout, that’s always been in Nick’s periphery, carving itself into the back of his mind, into a place in his soul.

It’s been quieter, recently, and he’d not quite noticed that until Griffin dragged him by the wrist through the doors of the club and the music had drowned it out entirely.

The speakers shake heavy, rapid beats into his throat, through his ribcage, behind his eyelids. It is, he thinks with a surprising calm, an entirely appropriate substitute.

At its most basic level, angelic combat is supposed to be a dance, moving to the rhythm of the Chorus and it’s always come to Nick as easily as breathing. He allows Griffin to pull him onto the dance floor, through the throng of people, and Nick lets his eyes fall half-lidded, lets himself drown out every thought that isn’t the music, lets himself lose time, lets himself  _ move,  _ thinks, stupidly, desperately, thoughtlessly,  _ this is holy, this is holy, this is holy _

He sees Griffin’s laugh of delight but can’t hear it, finds himself grinning back anyways as he moves a little farther from Griffin’s space, attracted by the buzzing mass surrounding him, thinking and breathing and living to the same beat as him. 

He’s swaying and then– 

There are a stranger’s hands on his hips, an unfamiliar body pushing up against his back and he thinks he’d be nervous or scared in any other situation but right now he’s desperate to be  _ touched  _ and he’s moving back, leaning in, figuring out that holy shit, his  _ dick  _ is a thing that’s about to get interested in this situation, and he’s– 

Looking up and making eye contact with Griffin, and Nick watches emotions fly across his face in real time, backlit by purple strobe lights that make him look surreal, ethereal, perfect; anger and frustration and hesitation and then open, unabashed  _ want  _ that sends sparks through Nick’s chest, and, his pupils are dilating, flooding his eyes past the iris, past the whites, and– 

Griffin’s got hands in the front of his shirt, hauling him bodily away from the guy grinding on him, and then there’s a hand fisted in his hair that’s  _ pulling  _ and Griffin’s hips are pressed to his and  _ moving  _ and Nick’s moaning messily into an openmouthed kiss, and there is literally fucking nothing Nick wants more right now than a wall to be pinned against, because Griffin’s pushing against him  _ hard  _ in a way that makes him want, desperately, to melt. 

He’s never been breathless before, not in any meaningful,  _ human  _ kind of way.

He discovers that he likes the feeling.

  
  


_ twelve _

There’s a narrow unlit alley behind the club and Griffin’s got Nick up against the opposite wall, crowding him in with both arms and kissing sloppily up his neck, his jawline, the stubble on his cheeks. When the residual noise clears from his head Nick realizes Griffin’s speaking, babbling against his collarbone, things like  _ “So fuckin’ pretty, you have no idea,”  _ things like  _ “Fuck, I wanna wreck you,”  _ things that make Nick want to  _ let _ him.

He’s rutting against the thigh shoved between his legs, head thrown back and panting, he thinks he’s desperate, thinks he’s pathetic, thinks he’s too big for his body and his skin is  _ burning  _ with it and he wants, he needs, he  _ needs  _ fingernails raking down his chest and a fist pulling his hair, needs to bleed or die or be shut up, needs to be fucked out and taken apart until he’s as broken and human as everyone else.

“I want,” he gasps, hands shoving at Griffin’s chest, “I want,” and the answer is  _ anything  _ and the answer is  _ you  _ and the answer is  _ worship  _ and it’s the easiest, sweetest thing to sink to his knees.

  
  


_ thirteen  _

He loses time, grounded only by the fingers twisted in his hair holding him still as Griffin fucks into his mouth, making him desperate for a breath he doesn’t need to take, grounded by the  _ weight _ of it, Griffin’s cock stretching his lips, hitting the back of his throat, making his eyes water, and he hears somewhere above him like it’s through a layer of cotton wool, hears Griffin say,  _ “wanna fuck you,”  _ and he  _ keens.  _

There’s a motel – somewhere, probably close and Nick doesn’t remember them walking to it but they must’ve, and he’s too buzzed and lost in it to remember to be disapproving when the receptionist’s eyes glaze over and Griffin snatches a key from behind the desk, doesn’t register a whole lot of anything until Griffin’s three fingers deep and has teeth on his neck, his shoulders, and Nick’s blissed out and sweating into the sheets, dragging his fingernails down Griffin’s back.

Griffin twists his wrist and Nick  _ moans,  _ this guttural, gutted sound that leaves him  _ winded  _ and before he can think there’s a hand over his mouth, pressing down, and Griffin’s hissing against his ear, “Be  _ considerate  _ to the neighbors,  _ sweetheart,”  _ and Nick feels the moment Griffin notices he’s gone limp and pliant under his hand, and there’s a grin in his voice when he says, “What, do I gotta shut you up?”

The muffled moan’s enough of an answer, must be, because Griffin shifts above him, pulls his hand away from his mouth and his fingers out, laughing low and dangerous at Nick’s whining at the loss of it. 

He closes his eyes when Griffin starts to push in, doesn’t dare to move again until he’s bottomed out, can’t help the harsh breath he sucks in when he feels fingertips probing his lips. Griffin takes the opportunity to slide three fingers into his mouth, and Nick hears him stifle a moan when he closes his lips around them and  _ sucks. _

Breathlessly, Griffin says, “Think I can fuck you like this?” and Nick can’t say  _ please  _ with his mouth full so he keens and whines and squirms, tries to roll his hips, tries to get Griffin to fucking  _ move.  _

The pace is–

Brutal and sweet and Nick’s got his legs hooked around Griffin’s back trying to get him  _ deeper,  _ desperate for more and he’s painfully _ ,  _ blissfully aware of the fucking fire in every nerve in his body, of his heart beating a tattoo against his fragile ribcage, of his lungs rising and falling and the air leaving in harsh pants from his nose, and he is frighteningly, awfully,  _ perfectly _ fucking  _ alive. _

He bites Griffin’s fingers when he comes, his entire body going tense and Griffin’s still  _ going,  _ pushing into him with enough force to shake the bed frame and Nick has an absent, sardonic thought about being considerate to the neighbors that’s forgotten in a rush of the way he’s caught in a feedback loop of his own senses and he can feel every thread of the sheets scratching into his skin and every individual drop of sweat on his forehead and fuck, fuck,  _ fuck,  _ there’s  _ too much  _ and he never wants it to stop.

It’s – shit, it can’t be more than half a minute before Griffin lets out a harsh groan in the shape of his name, riding through it with these stiff, stuttering thrusts before he pulls out, falls down next to Nick with a winded sigh.

Nick can’t move, or at the very least sure doesn’t want to try, but he turns his head until his face is right by Griffin’s shoulder, hesitates for a beat, then two, before slowly pressing his lips to the skin. He can’t help the relief, the dumb smile that pulls at his lips, when Griffin shifts down the bed immediately, lies on his side to face Nick, leans forward to kiss him closed-mouthed and sweet as sin.

  
  


_ fourteen  _

He hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep, and it is frightening, for a moment, to wake up.

He chokes on his own breath, tries to sit up, is stopped by a hand on his shoulder and a quiet, “Hey, hey, hey, bud. You’re alright, it’s just me, you’re just here with me.”   
  
Griffin’s propped himself up with pillows against the headboard to read his phone, so when Nick falls back to the bed with a sigh, he shifts until he’s got his head mostly resting on Griffin’s chest, letting his eyes flutter shut again. Griffin acknowledges this with a small hum and one of his hands moving to run absently through Nick’s hair, a feeling which is, Nick thinks, absolutely  _ divine.  _

It should be… different, maybe. Less? He’s sweaty and sticky and uncomfortably sore, lying in a dirty motel with scratchy sheets, a painful buzz in his head and a demon next to him, but.

Somehow he’s  _ content.  _ He might spend an eternity in this bed with Griffin, he thinks, and he lies in the silence, takes in the thousand small noises that make up the silence, until– 

“Are you gonna go back now,” Griffin asks, flatly. 

Unfooted, suddenly unsure of himself, Nick says, “This body will die if I do.”   
  
“That’s not what I asked, Nick,” Griffin says, and now his fingers have stopped in Nick’s hair and he’s pulling away, and Nick forces himself to sit up, look Griffin in the eyes, is something like relieved when he sees they’re back to blue. His mouth is a hard line, his eyes closed off and blank, and it makes Nick panic, want to ask what he did wrong, what  _ happened.  _

“Griffin, what–”

“I mean, it’s fine if you are. It’d be, it’d be easy for you to find some poor dying kid with a pretty face and borrow him for a night, get it out of your system and then go back Upstairs. It’s, it’s fine if that’s what this is, I’d just rather know  _ now  _ than after you’ve pulled a vanishing act on me.”

Nick feels his eyes go wide, knows with a strange, sudden surety that it  _ wouldn’t  _ be fine if that’s what this was, not really. 

He leans into Griffin’s space without thinking, only pauses when their noses bump, and he watches Griffin’s eyes slide shut.    
  
“I’m not going back,” he says, quietly.

“Okay,” Griffin breathes, after a moment.   
  
“Griffin,” he says, more firmly. “I don’t  _ want  _ to go back.”   
  
A smile, giddy and tentative, and then, “Oh. Okay.”

  
  


_ fifteen  _

Griffin introduces Nick to his family.

Which isn’t what Nick thinks is about to happen, when he’s led up to a rickety storefront in the not-quite-downtown, and he snorts when he reads the fading white lettering,  _ My Brother, My Brotherhood, and Me: Occult Advice for the Modern Era (seances on Wednesdays and Fridays, exorcism consultations free!) _

Except that the guy behind the cluttered counter looks so  _ almost  _ like Griffin around the mouth, and he laughs stiffly when he sees Nick, says, “Hey, Ditto, what the  _ fuck  _ is  _ that  _ doing in here?”

His name is Justin, Nick learns shortly, sitting in a creaky threadbare office chair in the backroom of the store, watches nervously as looks are shared between him and the other guy, Travis, he thinks. 

Griffin, apparently oblivious to the tension rolling off of his brothers in waves, had gone on babbling at Nick, explained, “So, seriously, back in, I guess the 19th century? There were these three brothers, and they ran this, this kinda comedy group, got fuckin’  _ huge  _ with it, travelled all over the world to perform, it was buckwild, dude. Except,  _ except, _ behind the comedian thing, they were spies for like,  _ five  _ different fuckin’ countries, Nick, it was  _ insane!  _ So they get caught, and they’re gonna get executed for like, sixteen different types of treason, and we’re fuckin’ watching this like, ‘we cannot let these magnificent gentlemen go down like this’, so-”   
  
“So you made a contract?” Nick guesses, and it’s a testament to Griffin’s infectious enthusiasm that he’s smiling despite his ongoing worry that Justin’s really, honestly going to try and kill him, which would  _ suck.  _

Griffin grins proudly. “Uh-huh! And we’ve been livin’ it up in their names ever since. Well, like not literally their  _ names, _ but their memories.”   
  
“And you chose to do that by running a sham occult shop?”   
  
Griffin’s hand flies over his heart.  _ “Nick!  _ We would  _ never!  _ We provide gen-u-ine services here, and honestly? Who fuckin’ better to provide them?”

Can’t argue with that.

  
  


_ sixteen  _

“So you’re… just  _ choosing  _ to leave the Chorus? Self-banishing?” Travis asks thoughtfully, when Nick and Griffin’s rambling, incohesive explanation is done. Nick stares at his fingers drumming on the desk, figuring it’s easier than looking into his, or worse, Justin’s eyes. 

He shrugs. “I guess.”   
  
“Will you Fall?” It’s funny – most of Travis’ overt hostility had drained as soon as Nick had started talking, though he’s not sure what his stammering has done to instill any confidence – he just seems more genuinely curious, than anything.

Nick blinks. “I- I don’t know. Maybe? Nobody’s actually Fallen since–” Well. Since God, really. And even that was so long ago that it’s just rumour and whispers, not something Nick knows enough about to try and make a guess. “I don’t know,” he repeats lamely.

“Will they come after you?” And the other shoe drops, Justin’s question coming sharp and accusing, leaned back in his chair and surveying Nick with open suspicion.

“Maybe,” he whispers, but if any of them hear the  _ eventually  _ behind it nobody says a word.

After a time, Griffin leans forward in his seat, just says, “Justin,” voice quieter, more pleading than Nick’s ever heard it, and there’s a sort of desperate hope in his eyes that makes something in Nick’s throat lock up. It’s reflexive, almost unconscious, to reach over and put a tentative hand on Griffin’s thigh, squeezing once when he gets a grateful smile in response.

Justin looks between them with something approaching confusion on his face, and abruptly, all of the fight seems to leave him. “Aw, jeez, Griffin,” he says, a laugh hidden somewhere in his disgusted groan, “I’m not giving your fuckin’  _ boyfriend  _ a job!”

Griffin grins, says, “But  _ boss,  _ we gotta support the kids, we gotta make ends meet here!” Almost cut off by Travis slamming a hand on the desk, crying, “Nepotism,  _ nepotism!” _ Met instantly with Griffin’s near-hysterical shouting,  _ “We’re all fuckin’ brothers numbnuts!”  _

Nick can’t quite help but collapse into laughter, head falling against Griffin’s shoulder as he sets off a chain reaction of pathetic giggling in the room, any pretense of tension gone.

  
  


_ last _

Travis drops a heavy hand on his shoulder in the doorway, stopping him from following Griffin and Justin’s voices trailing further into the shop.

An eternity of silence, long enough for Nick to panic, long enough for him to chew a hole through the skin on the inside of his mouth, and then Travis just sighs, says, “Be careful, alright? We… we’ve given up a lot to be here. It’s not always safe.”   
  
Nick nods sharply, doesn’t breathe until Travis squeezes him once, claps him on the shoulder, moves out of his space.

Nick doesn’t understand until he does, freezes in the doorframe for a solid minute, tries to think of a way to say,  _ I’m sorry I was going to kill your brother, I didn’t know, Sorry I was going to kill your brother, I didn’t have a choice, Sorry I was going to kill your brother, I’m a coward,  _ until Griffin trails back to find him, runs a hand thoughtlessly up and down his forearm, says, “Alright, bud?” And Nick nods, because it’s not true, but it might be.


	2. author's note

it's 8.7.17 my time, and i'm writing to clarify.

in light of recent events, we're all being forced to question what to do with our content involving nick.

personally, i am choosing to keep mine up out of posterity. as painful as this has all been, and as _unconscionable_ as i think what nick's done is, i am proud of what i wrote here in a way i'm not usually. the way i view it, it's the same as it always was: this was written about a character presented by someone on the internet, without aspirations upon the person themselves. basically: this is mine, and he can pry it from my cold fucking fingers.

that being said, fuck you, nick robinson.

take care of yourselves, everyone.

**Author's Note:**

> [How green, how green was my valley?/ Clear softness in our hymn/ Soft, like coming rain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD__QQvknXU)


End file.
